Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (4.1885-1886)

256 THE ATHENIAN PNYX.

of stone work to be found in Greece. In other words, we were
convinced that pre-Pnyxian work is to be found about the Pnyx itself.
To this we reckon the blocks of stone which stand on top of the
hill at the south-west corner of the enclosure, the steps which dis-
appear under the circular wall, and the three steps found below the
bema by Curtius, as well as the dressing of the rock which Curtius
noticed in the trench which he dug. The blocks at the south-
west corner have been mentioned above as similar to those of the
semicircular wall; but in this place they are entirely out of harmony
with their surroundings, and must have belonged to a wall such
as Goettling suggests, or to something else of which we have no
knowledge. The steps below the semicircular wall certainly existed
before this wall was built, as they disappear under it. The steps
which Curtius found, as we have seen from the description above,
are lower, more rounded on the edges, and generally older in appear-
ance, than those of the bema. In a line with the two large blocks
of stone described above, near J) on the survey, is another block,
almost cubical in form and also marked " Wall." In a line with these
three, in-the "Cultivated Patch," between f and R on the survey,
Goettling found another stone which has now disappeared, and which
he took for a part of his supposed Pelasgic fortification. These
large blocks, three of which are still in position, certainly belonged
to some such wall as Goettling has supposed. Their line is out of
harmony with everything about the Pnyx. They are all too far
from the back wall of the Pnyx to have had any relation to it. They
certainly were not put where they are to level up the irregularities
of the top of this half of the back wall of the Pnyx, as some have
seemed to assume. These rocks and the two sets of steps are evi-
dence almost unmistakable that some very ancient structure has been
remodelled in order to produce the Pnyx which we now see. Seen
from this standpoint, the apparent lack of harmony between this
structure and the general character of the age of Attic oratory may
be better understood.

6. Ulrichs and others have urged that the bema in the so-called
Pnyx cannot have been the tribune of the Attic orators, because this
was a ktdos. or movable stone.

Ulrichs's thought seems to have been that the word -n-erpa would
more accurately describe the so-called bema, as it is a large mass of